United States v. Stevens

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. ___ (2010) was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that 18 U.S.C.
48, a federal statute criminalizing the commercial production, sale, or possession of depictions of cruelty to animals, was an unconstitutional abridgment of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.18 U.S.C.
48 was a federal criminal statute that prohibited the knowing creation, sale, or possession of depictions of cruelty to animals with the intention of placing the depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain. The law had been enacted in 1999, primarily to target "crush videos", which depicted people crushing small animals to gratify a sexual fetish.